“Why don’t they fight back?” Keru asked. Riker realized he was right; the attacks were entirely one-sided.

“Maybe they can only fire in the armored mode,” Jaza said.

“There’s more,” Deanna said. “Somehow they just…can’t. Or won’t.”

Just then, one of the jellies was struck a dead-on blow to its ventral side, between the tendrils. Two of the wispy appendages broke free and spun away. At the moment of impact, Deanna and Tuvok both convulsed in pain, and Tuvok let out a strangled scream. Vapor erupted from the wound, and the jelly’s internal lights flared, flickered and then fell dark, first the blue glow, then the rings.

“Counselor? Mr. Tuvok?”

“Apologies, Captain,” Tuvok said. “Not just…the creature’s death throes. The others…”

Deanna nodded. “The grief of the others, combined…it’s extremely intense. Even with my shields up I felt it.”

“Can you sense anything from the attackers?”

She shook her head. “But I can’t really probe without lowering my defenses, and I’m hesitant to do that.”

“Tuvok?”

“I…do not believe there is anything to sense, Captain. The creatures feel the attackers are… wrong…a corruption…there is a revulsion, as though toward a corpse.”

Deanna nodded. “Yes. These are like dead things to them, and yet they’re attacking, menacing. The jellies feel a sense of mortal dread, as though the attackers were…well, the closest analogies I can think of are the zombies from old Earth monster movies.”

Vale frowned. “Jaza, scan the attackers more closely for biosigns.”

“If I remember right,” Riker told her, “the Enterprise’s sensors couldn’t penetrate them. There are substances in their hulls…or hides…that resist scans.”

“We’ve learned a few new tricks in the past sixteen years, sir,” Jaza replied. It was an understatement; the Lunaclass carried prototype sensors beyond anything else in Starfleet. “Uh-huh, those hulls are well shielded, but just give me a moment to calibrate…There. The attackers show limited activity in some biosystems, including propulsion and defense…but no anabolic processes, and nothing that resembles cognitive activity. The walking dead indeed. But I’m also reading numerous biosignatures inside them.”

Riker looked up at him sharply. “What kind of biosignatures?”

“Just a moment, I’m refining resolution…. They seem to be endothermic bipeds, about our size.”

Riker exchanged a look with Deanna, then turned to Dakal at ops. “Cadet, try hailing them.”

“Hailing…No response,” the young Cardassian said.

“A crew?” Vale asked.

“I’ve been inside two of these creatures,” Riker said. “In at least some of their forms, they contain passages that resemble corridors, with a habitable environment inside. They certainly could be adapted into ships.”

“And we’ve encountered living ships before,” Deanna said.

“Except these people don’t seem to need them alive,” Riker said coldly. “Dakal, keep hailing. Ensign Lavena—put Titanbetween the attackers and the star-jellies. Mr. Keru, shields at maximum.” Vale threw him a look, but kept her counsel for the moment.

There were too many ships for Titanto block standing still. But she was light, fast, and maneuverable, and her pilot had grown up slaloming through Pacifican coral forests and dodging serpent-rays. Lavena flitted the ship around almost playfully before the attackers’ sights, keeping them from getting a clean shot and probably making them dizzy to boot.

“We’re receiving a hail,” Dakal finally reported. That was a good sign. “Hailing frequencies” were a standard first-contact handshake protocol, allowing two ships’ computers to begin with universal physical and mathematical constants and build a translation matrix in seconds, if their databases didn’t already have any languages in common. Any warp-capable species with any interest in talking to strangers eventually developed such protocols. The return hail meant that the attackers had at least the willingness to communicate, and that was a good start.

“On screen,” said Riker, turning to confront the attackers. When the screen came on, his eyes widened. He hadn’t expected them to be beautiful. The screen showed a number of delicate-looking bipeds, slim-boned and decked with downy, green-gold feathers. Hawklike eyes stared from above sharp-toothed, beak-tipped muzzles, and vivid-hued, feathery crests topped many of their heads. Their feathered coats gave them no need for clothing, but they wore protective gear on their joints and vital areas, plus various equipment belts or harnesses and assorted insignia or sigils. Behind them was a passageway of familiar design, triangular and round-cornered, its ribbed, cardboard-brown walls embossed with intricate patterns that seemed neither wholly organic nor wholly artificial.

“Flit off, for your own sake,”the one nearest the camera said curtly. He (the translator gave the being a gruff, nasal baritone) was far from the largest of the group, his headcrest was threadbare and faded, and there seemed to be considerable scarring beneath his feathery coat; but he carried himself with a casual yet undeniable authority. “Our quarry won’t linger if they have time to gather their warp fields!”

“I’m Captain William T. Riker of the starship Titan,representing the United Federation of Planets. I don’t know the nature of your conflict, but my people aren’t inclined to sit idly by when we see sentient beings dying. We don’t intend to take sides, but we’d be glad to offer our services as a neutral mediator in your dispute.” His voice carried more steel than his words; he only hoped their translators were good enough to render it.

“You talk against the wind,”said the avian, his matter-of-fact tone clashing with his poetic phrasing. “Toy with cosmic fire, and the Spirit’s not to blame for your burns. The Hunt must be!”His image faded, leaving stars.

“Captain, they’re firing on the jellies,” Keru reported.

“Block it, Lavena! All crew, brace for impact!”

Magenta fire filled the viewer. The blow badly rattled the ship and dimmed the lights. “Shields are holding,” Keru reported. “But power systems are being disrupted. I don’t know how it’s getting through.”

Another bolt hit, even harder this time. Riker had to clutch the arms of his chair to stay in it. “The discharges…” Tuvok said with difficulty. “Organic rather than technological…our shields may not be adequately calibrated.” A third hit rammed home the point. Console screens flickered as ship’s power systems compensated for an overload somewhere.

“Can we compensate?”

“We may not have to,” Jaza said. “The star-jellies have just gone to warp.”

“Attackers breaking off,” Keru said a moment later.

“Are they in pursuit?”

“Negative, sir. My guess is, they can’t track them at warp. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been so concerned about them getting away.”

Riker could barely imagine how organic beings could enter warp in the first place, though he’d seen it more than once. But there were other priorities. “Damage report!”

Vale was already coordinating the reports on her side console. “Minor casualty reports, nothing serious. We’ve had EPS blowouts on four decks. Synchronization failure in dorsal shield emitters. Several impulse injectors are fused. Warp is fine, but the navigational deflector’s offline. We won’t be moving anywhere for a while.”

“Bridge to engineering,” Riker called. “Estimated repair time for engines and main deflector?”

“At least six hours, depending on whether you want shields back too,”came Ra-Havreii’s voice. “Longer if you want me to spend time computing a better estimate.”

“Just do the best you can, Doctor.”

As he spoke, a bleep came from Ops. “We’re being hailed, sir,” Dakal told him. “Same ship as before.”

“On screen.”